Despite a sharp increase in the prosecution of terrorism cases just after Sept. 11, 2001, only 14 of the defendants have been sentenced to 20 years or more in prison, according to a study based on Justice Department data.

Of the 1,329 convicted defendants, only 625 received any prison sentence, said the study, released Sunday by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research group at Syracuse University. More than half of those convicted got no prison time or no more than they had already served awaiting their verdict.

The analysis of data from Justice's Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys also found that in the eight months ending last May, Justice attorneys declined to prosecute more than nine out of every 10 terrorism cases sent to them by the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies. Nearly 4 in 10 of the rejected cases were scrapped because prosecutors found weak or insufficient evidence, no evidence of criminal intent or no evident federal crime.

The small number of long prison sentences shouldn't be a surprise because "terrorism is actually very rare â€” far more people are killed in ordinary street crime," said James Dempsey, policy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Nevertheless, terrorism poses a risk of catastrophic loss of life, "so agencies must pursue a lot of leads that do not pan out," Dempsey added. "We can't blame the FBI for pursuing those leads, but we can blame them and the Justice Department for arresting people and making a big media splash when things don't pan out."
We can also take to heart just how wrong wrong wrong the Bush government and its dittohead apologists and fans are when it comes to civil rights.

This is a problem when it comes to the non-prisoners in Guantanamo.

At the penalty trial of al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, the government acknowledged that it has captured most of the Sept. 11 ringleaders including mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and operations coordinator Ramzi Binalshibh. Although prosecutors suggested they might be charged somewhere someday, the government has never disproved persistent allegations they were tortured during interrogations overseas and thus cannot be tried in U.S. courts.

If prosecutions "have been compromised by unlawful interrogation or surveillance, that would be worse than ironic," Aftergood said. "It would mean the government has performed in a self-defeating manner."You think?

This is a land ruled by laws, not by men. But the men in charge have really messed up. Now what? That's the question of this upcoming election.

The latest revelations about the White House being the target of the 9/11 hijackers, makes sense. Though the Pentagon was a high profile target, if we look at how it went down in New York, it was two planes that moved quick to the targets.

The DC end of things seemed very different. One plane almost to Cleveland. The other circling around DC waiting for the "straggler."

The Pentagon might be a symbol of American power, but the Capitol Building. The White House. Surely these would be much more shocking to the nation.

The DC end of the plan has never made much sense and seems to have not worked out. In fact, when with think of 9/11, despite the death toll at the Pentagon, it seems pale. Yet had one or both of the planes hit the Capitol Building and/or the White House, I am sure that that is what would linger in our minds, more than the World Trade Center.

Is Moussaoui following Osama's orders by spilling fake beans? When were these orders given? And since it is going on almost five years, and Osama is nowhere to be found, is Moussaoui under Osama's sway at all? Perhaps Moussaoui is having his final 15-minutes of fame and messing with our heads, but if he is telling the truth - even part of it - it starts to put the pieces together in a more plausible order.

I remain somewhat skeptical, but I am not ready to dismiss what he is saying. He well may be the last link we'll have for a while as to what actually happened on that terrible day and what went wrong for them and right for the United States.

In his four-year campaign against al Qaeda, President Bush has turned the U.S. national security apparatus inward to secretly collect information on American citizens on a scale unmatched since the intelligence reforms of the 1970s.That's right. Here we are, four years after foreign nationals who were in this country illegally managed to illegally hijack planes and (illegally) fly them into buildings, killing thousands, and our own government is treating American citizens as the #1 security risk.

Since October, news accounts have disclosed a burgeoning Pentagon campaign for "detecting, identifying and engaging" internal enemies that included a database with information on peace protesters. A debate has roiled over the FBI's use of national security letters to obtain secret access to the personal records of tens of thousands of Americans. And now come revelations of the National Security Agency's interception of telephone calls and e-mails from the United States -- without notice to the federal court that has held jurisdiction over domestic spying since 1978.
That's right. You damn Americans are un-American!

A high-ranking intelligence official with firsthand knowledge said in an interview yesterday that Vice President Cheney, then-Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet and Michael V. Hayden, then a lieutenant general and director of the National Security Agency, briefed four key members of Congress about the NSA's new domestic surveillance on Oct. 25, 2001, and Nov. 14, 2001, shortly after Bush signed a highly classified directive that eliminated some restrictions on eavesdropping against U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

In describing the briefings, administration officials made clear that Cheney was announcing a decision, not asking permission from Congress. How much the legislators learned is in dispute.So either the Republican-controlled Congress needs protection now, or it just couldn't be trusted then.

The Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, began as a small policy-coordination office but has grown to encompass nine directorates and a staff exceeding 1,000. The agency's Talon database, collecting unconfirmed reports of suspicious activity from military bases and organizations around the country, has included "threat reports" of peaceful civilian protests and demonstrations.
Nixon knew all about this: surveillance of "political enemies."

The Post reported that the FBI has issued tens of thousands of national security letters, extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans. Most of the U.S. residents and citizens whose records were screened, the FBI acknowledged, were not suspected of wrongdoing.But under Bush, we're now guilty until proven innocent.

But here's the crux of the issue:

Yesterday's acknowledgment of warrantless NSA eavesdropping brought the most forthright statement from the president that his war on terrorism is targeting not only "enemies across the world" but "terrorists here at home." In the "first war of the 21st century," he said, "one of the most critical battlefronts is the home front."

Bush sidestepped some of the implications by citing examples only of foreigners who infiltrated the United States -- Saudi citizens Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers. But the most fundamental changes undertaken in the Bush administration's surveillance policy are the ones that have broadened the powers of the NSA, FBI and Pentagon to spy on "U.S. persons" -- American citizens, permanent residents and corporations -- on American soil.
Just listen to our president:

In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to Al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks.

This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies.

Yesterday, the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have.

And the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies and endangers our country.
The man pays a lot of lip service to notions of "spreading democracy" around the world, but has little patience or interest in preserving democracy here at home.

Spying on Americans who aren't even suspected of crimes? What's up with that?